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The Super Ads Review

Yesterday was the day we all put our differences aside and get into arguments over a football game played by teams we root against for the entire rest of the year – Super Bowl Sunday.

If you live in Seattle or Denver you’re excused from this characterization.

We don’t even have the old NFL – AFL rivalry any more. In the early days of the Super Bowl it was the “3 yards and a cloud of dust” NFL tough men against the high flying passing attack of the AFL. Now…they all play the same. First, I think they need to go back to the old Super Bowl format. It should be played by different leagues. Arena football only fields 7 guys and Canadian Football is simply the farm league so that wouldn’t make much of a competition. I thought a playoff between the NFL and the Lingerie League might make an…oh, interesting matchup. But in a comparison of speed, strength and size I suggest a playoff between the NFL and the NHL. One year the game would be played on grass – the next year on ice. I like the idea of a goalie smacking a charging wide receiver with that board thing as they try to run between the old style goalposts. Instead of instant replays the teams would just throw off the helmets and wail on each other…whoever takes the fewest stitches gets the call. I suggest you write your congressmen…they aren’t doing anything else.

Being from LA and living in New England I had absolutely no one to root for so I anticipated the game like most true Americans…for the commercials.

As we all know now, the game was a blow out.

Unfortunately, the only thing worse than the game was the commercials. Remember when both fans and sports haters could sit side by side for three hours eating mountains of football shaped food and drinking like they were still in college. The commercials were the glue that held us together. Jocks and nerds came together to debate whether this years offerings beat “Where’s The Beef”, last year’s Budweiser Clydesdales, or Mean Joe Greene throwing the kid his jersey.

This year they didn’t…in a big way.

It started off locally here with an ad for Mountain Dew…a new Mountain Dew…Mountain Dew Kick Start. Yessireee, the guys down at the Mountain Dew labs have somehow figured out a way to put more sugar and caffeine into Mountain Dew. Plus cocaine, I think! They added a drop of “real fruit juice” and are now touting this concoction as a breakfast drink. All in all, a disturbing thought.

I went through the internet’s top 10 and kinda disagreed. (BTW it’s a little annoying to have to watch a commercial to be able to see a video of a commercial – jus’ sayin’)

Car Commercials Division

Maserati – a bunch of natural disasters narrated by an 8 year old kid. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just say “Hey…you…yeah, YOU…got an extra $65,500?” and then the rap stars and trust fund babies could sit there and the rest of us could have gone to the bathroom.

Bob Dylan shows up shilling for the Detroit auto industry

“How does it feeeel To be on the rooooadIn an American caaaarMade by a guy naaaamed Joe”

A bad SNL skit about a mutant Chihuahua/Doberman mix eating Sarah McLachlan’s guitar was somehow suppose to make us want to buy an Audi.

Bruce Willis tells us how safe Honda cars are while some guy who was evidently in BOTH “Anchorman” movies hangs on him like a baby chimp.

Hyundai got the guy from Big Bang Theory who isn’t gay to try to pick up a girl…dude, get a Maserati.

The VW ad was cute with a nod to A Wonderful Life and the VW workers getting wings but did we really need the “rainbows out of their ass” comment by a texting tween? Who writes this crap, Lewis CK?

The winner in the car category?

Jag-U-Are (that’s how they pronounce it), a bunch of Bond-esq villains cranking down the road in the newest Jaguar sex machine. “Oh yes. It’s good to be bad”.

Food Division

The spot for Doritos with the guy getting into the cardboard time machine totally escapes me. How stoned do you have to be if you’re wandering down a street stuffing your face with Doritos and some kid offers you a ride in a time machine – and you think it’s a good idea. I was surprised it wasn’t an ad for the Colorado Tourism Board.

Dylan returns serenading a bear that somehow has eaten too many trout and needs a shot of yogurt to get his probiotics back in line.

Heinz offers up the old empty squeeze bottle fart noise joke. Did John Kerry approve this?

John Stamos – reverse Something About Mary joke

The M&Ms ad was the worst of the series with the giant talking M&Ms.

Winner in the Food Category?

Doritos! Surprise!

They reclaimed their stature with the lil’ cowboy spot. Funny , clever, well executed. And what little brother didn’t want to tie up his older sibling and steal all the snacks? (Sorry, Greg)But why do both Doritos ads feature the dog eating the Doritos????

Other People With $40 Million To Spend On A Commercial Division

The Turbo Tax ad seem to be telling us that if our team didn’t get into the game and we didn’t go to the prom with the girl of our dreams we should do our taxes instead of watching the game, get a huge refund check and – from the look on the guys face – blow it on dope and hookers.

Ellen led us through a weird retelling of Goldilocks with her search for the best music she can’t dance to.

Staying on the music theme, Sonos Play tried to convince us that playing different styles of music loud enough to make the walls bleed in different rooms of the house is somehow a good idea.

GoDaddy strangely didn’t feature Danica Patrick in their ad with bodybuilders descending on a fake spray tanning salon. She was lost in a cloud of testosterone sweat.

The Sodastream commercial was somehow draped in controversy. Millennial-babe Scarlett Johansson makes some orange soda, takes off a white lab coat to reveal a black dress and taunts Coke and Pepsi with her…orange drink? OK if she had said “Hey Pepsi and Coke…suck on this..” maybe I get it.

And the Winner Is……A Tie!!!

Squarespace is the first company to actually say how creepy, weird and sick the internet has become and it somehow convinces us that by having them host your website your creepy, weird, sick website about dumpster diving will somehow be…I dunno better?

The esurance commercial that aired right after the Super Bowl that talked about how they saved $1.5 Million by buying the first commercial after the game…and now they were going to give the $1.5 million away. If I didn’t have an ironclad contract with Sully’s Insurance and Snow Plowing Service I’d sign right up.

The Best Ads

Budweiser continues with the classiest, most entertaining, best produced commercials. Hey you guys…screw the micro beers – drink more Bud.